Russia’s FSB security service said on Thursday it had detained a reporter for The Wall Street Journal on suspicion of spying for Washington, the most serious public move against a foreign journalist since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The FSB said in a statement that it had opened a criminal case for suspected espionage against US national Evan Gershkovich, accusing him of gathering information classified as a state secret about a military factory.
It did not name the factory or say where it was, but said it had detained him in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg as he was trying to procure secret information.
It provided no evidence.
“It has been established that E. Gershkovich, acting on an assignment from the American side, was gathering information classified as a state secret about the activity of one of the enterprises of Russia’s military-industrial complex,” the FSB said in its statement.
Russia has tightened censorship laws since it sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24 last year in what it called a “special military operation.”
The Wall Street Journal and the US Embassy in Moscow did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
A US diplomatic source said the embassy had not been informed about the incident and was seeking information from the Russian authorities about the case.—Agencies
